I love food! But food did not always love me back. My tummy upsets take me way back to when I was a little girl. I would always promise myself that I would never eat again because it seemed like everything upset my stomach.
When I was 19 years old, I was visiting an herbal shop with my mom and they were offering free iridology. This is a method of diagnosis used in alternative medicine by examination of the iris of the eye. Once the herbalist looked into my eyes, he asked if I ate meat.
I told him, “Not much. My parents are from Africa, so we eat mostly chicken and fish.”
He then inquired if I ever had any stomach problems! I could not understand, for the life of me how he came to that conclusion from looking into my eyes and not my stomach!
“Yes!”, I answered.
He explained to me that I was not fully digesting my proteins and should consider a vegetarian diet!
For the next 30 years I was back and forth on a vegetarian diet. My stomach problems were better when I left the animal proteins off of my plate but I did continue with dairy, heavy on the cheese.
In January of 2015, along with everyone else making New Year’s resolutions, I vowed to clean up my diet, take vegetarianism more seriously to avoid stomach pains, and to lose weight. A friend of mine invited me to a Free Nutrition Workshop, where the speaker would tell us how he suffered a heart attack and how he went on to reverse it with a change in his diet.
I was always very interested in health and wellness. I was a nurse for 15 years before I quit my career to homeschool my children, so this free workshop sounded very interesting to me. The free dinner and free book included was a bonus.
After hearing John Tanner speak at one of the NuSci events (https://www.nusci.org/), seeing the scientific evidence, and tasting the food he reversed his heart condition with (https://littlegreenforks.com/), I was completely sold on this new way of eating! The science was compelling and the food was absolutely delicious!
I returned several times to the free class with my husband, daughter, and several friends during the next few months. I read all of the free books that were given out and made up my mind that this was the way for us to start eating.
I went home and told my family this is how we are going to eat. I ditched all the meat, dairy and cheese in the house, and we began our new plant-based journey. There was nothing they could say because I did all the cooking in the house anyway. (smile)
After only 1 month of changing our diet, we began to notice some differences. One of my boys used to complain of headaches, nausea and vomiting, but had not had any episodes since. My daughter was having chronic ear infections, sinus, and bladder infections, but they disappeared. My other son suffered from eczema on his skin, but it cleared up. My stomach began to feel so much better. No more bloating or pain. We did not even realize all of the negative symptoms we were experiencing from dairy and meat products until we cut them out!
It has been almost 5 years and I am still plant strong! We eat so much more of a variety of fruits and vegetables than we did before and it's all delicious! I enjoy cooking, baking and sharing plant-based meals with family and friends. I am not missing out on anything, and my tummy is very happy!
Kate Whorton
